Folks in the newspaper business call it the daily miracle. That all the information, argument, insanity and personality somehow come out in orderly columns every day is somewhat awe-inspiring.
I believed it too, until this past week.
It is a gargutuan effort to make a newspaper happen, especially in these days of shrinking newsholes and circulation, but in the end it's an exercise that is used to train puppies.
Working in an Intensive Care Unit, is a daily miracle.
Ostensibly I've spent many hours there recently visiting my mother, but it is the nature of critical illness that most of the visitor's time is spent waiting: for the doctors to finish, for Mom to complete a much-needed nap, for various procedures and housekeeping tasks. I've had a lot of watching time.
"Conversation" with Mom is limited to small nods, awkwardly mouthed syllables and weak squeezes of my hand as the various machines serve the steely function of keeping her alive so she can concentrate on the option of getting stronger.
In the first few days, my thoughts centered on Mom, my Dad, my brother. You're on high alert when you're there and jump out of your skin each time the phone rings when you are not.
But eventually things fall into a rhythm beat out by the steady cadence of the monitors. It's the 10th day now and my brother and I know most of the nurses by name.
There is a phalanx of physicians, each with a speciality and a exclusive focus on that aspect of the condition. They speak to the family only when you catch them.
Their hurried conversations range from the sugar-coated "Her kidneys are sleeping now" (as if a vital organ had been tucked-in with milk and cookies) to the extreme straight-talker my brother groused had seen too many episodes of House. I liked the "House" guy - his pronouncement was negative, but he gave us what he saw.
Many of the doctors focus solely on the Manhattan Phone Book that is her chart, writing copious notes and disappearing through side doors without ever making eye contact with anxious family.
"I am very important," their quick stride says. "I am not here to inform you. I am here to take care of my aspect of the complex case that you see as a human being."
But the nurses deal with the person patient and the family. Day and night, they are front and center in a situation where some of the patients will eventually be transferred to a medical floor, but most will not.
They see families at their best and worst - and patients primarily at their worst -- and deal with it every day, all the time.
Around the other patients, I've watched family members pick fights with nurses and accuse them of absurd nonsense, screaming and threatening.
I've cowered quietly watching how sharp and cruel grief and confusion can make people.
There's been a contingent of security on the door the last few days after a large family group decided to have a rowdy party, complete with alcohol, around their comatose patriarch... and then refused to leave.
Other families scream sadness in their silence, just catching their eye makes your heart hurt.
Eventually you recognize the various monitor alarms bleeting for a hurried response. Things usually just go to the edge of the cliff -- counting on the nurse to pull things back from the precipice. But sometimes the patient goes over and the nurses deal compassionately with family members who suddenly recognize they were not prepared for this possibility.
The room is cleaned and the bed crisply made within minutes after the still guerney leaves with the sheet pulled high. Often the room receives a new patient within hours.
And somehow the nurses start again with cheery introductions and positive pronouncements when that family arrives. They speak to the patients by name and learn the names of family too.
They know the odds are long that things will end well, but they give the patient and family all they have to give.
I don't know how they do it, but I am grateful.
They are a daily miracle.


Copyright 2008 Judi Griggs